Tangled Among Fabric Fields
by Agas Spenjahgra VII
Summary: A history geek college girl finds herself in a forest... somehow. And then samurai showed up. This may not be what it sounds like. T for language.
1. Why am I in a forest?

It was morning, and I was sitting on grass. In what looked like a dense forest.

_How?_

I was pretty darn sure I was working late hours at the computer labs before – well, before I apparently passed out because my body just went "Nope, ain't letting you work for even one more second!" on me. The curse of art college students everywhere, you know?

The labs don't close down ever, and even if it did, I don't think the security would be _that_ bored to bother tossing me out in some random forest. I was pretty darn sure there _isn't_ any forests around the town I live in. Well, not anywhere that doesn't require a good few hours' drive to reach. So… The heck is this place? Was I kidnapped? I don't think kidnappers make it a habit to toss their victims in the middle of nowhere.

My heart was pounding so hard that my chest hurt. This is seriously not good.

_Okay. Okay. Calm down._ _I have to figure out where this place is first. _

I patted around the grass to check if I had dropped anything while I was being transported here. Nothing. My bag was still slung around my shoulder and nothing seemed to be missing – wait, I don't have my wallet or phone… Bad. BAD!

I was starting to freak out again when I remembered.

_… Oh that's right, I left them at the dorms. Shame on me._

I didn't think it was a big deal to leave it, because the computer lab building was right across the dorms. I thought I would just do my work and run back to my room and sleep. I have never ever passed out in the middle of work before, so I didn't think it would be a problem.

_Errgh, I know there's a first for everything, but why does _this_ kind of first have to happen?_

There seemed to be some sort of well-worn dirt path nearby, so I walked along it, hoping that the way I was heading wasn't going deeper _into_ the forest. I had no idea where I was, so there really was no telling of what creepy things would be in there. Like, maybe there wouldn't be tigers or anything, but what if there were gangsters burying dead bodies in there? You never know.

I tried looking around for any familiar plants or trees, but no luck. The trees around town usually had Spanish moss growing all over them. None on the trees here. I know that the trees in the forest _probably_ would be different, but still…

Then suddenly, I heard loud footsteps –

_Oh goodie! People!_

– that was immediately followed by the sound of a galloping horse.

That's weird. There were horse carriage rides for tourists around town, but… I don't think they could even run around this fast. Not that they're not allowed to, but because those horse actually aren't capable of running at all. So… what gives, then?

Then I heard someone shout, "There she is! Get her!"

And before I could even process what whoever-it-was had said, I was being surrounded by samurai pointing their swords at me.

_Dafuq is going on in here?_

This had to be some weird dream. This wasn't the first time I dreamed of samurai. There was this one time that I dreamed I was a strategist for some unidentified _daimyo_ – thank goodness for that. I didn't want to know which overlord I was helping or what the outcome of the battle was, because I've always hate strategy-oriented games and I was pretty darn sure I'd make our team lose if I'd seen the dream through.

I raised my hands timidly, trying to edge as far away from the swords as possible. What weird role was I playing this time? I remembered that in that weird strategist dream I was still wearing my usual hoodie and pants and no one seemed to bat en eyelash, so the fact that I was wearing modern clothes right now don't really mean a thing.

Not cool. Not cool. Not cool.

Don't tell me I was some kind of magic criminal or something? Because those swords were seriously overkill. I'm all alone here. No need to be pointed a dozen swords at me.

I could feel my palms sweating. And my back too. I wanted to wipe my hands, but I didn't dare to move. Those samurai might lop off my hands or head or something. I prefer to stay alive, even in dreams, thanks.

The guy on the horse jumped down and moved closer to me and the samurai made way for him, though they still kept their swords pointed at me.

The first thing I noticed was that he was wearing a very flashy and strange-looking _jinbaori_ over his armour. He must have been high-ranking and rich to be able to afford all those gold embroidery. The patterns on the lapels, though – it looks more like a British navy captain's jacket than traditional _jinbaori_ with all those stripes. I have never ever seen anything like this other than in those fantasy-esque history-inspired _Musou _games.

Huh. Maybe _that's_ it. I once pulled an all-nighter playing a Three Kingdoms game and when I went to bed I dreamed Cao Cao was chasing me around some random castle trying to murder me.

The next thing I notices was that his hair wasn't done in a traditional samurai hairstyle. I wasn't even sure how that was done. Was it a ponytail? A braid? A knot? I can't tell! And a real samurai in battlefield wouldn't have his bangs draping all over his face like that.

Yep, this is _so_ totally a game universe. Does that mean I get to pack magic punches? I sure hope I can magically figure out how to do it anytime now, because I just want to get out of this place. I don't even care about what plot was going on. I don't want to be involved!

The unidentified officer was in front of me now, and he was smirking widely.

I didn't like that very self-satisfied smirk, and I really felt bad because that _was_ a terrible moment, but I was still a girl with a romantic maiden heart and I couldn't help but notice that he was _really_ pretty. In a scruffy way.

Still not liking all the swords pointed at me. But it wasn't like I could do anything else. I was already standing stiff and trying not to get poked by a sword, and I was never good at keeping my mind focused. Ever. Not even when there was a crisis. My mind would still be all over the place.

Case in point: now.

The officer looked me up and down, still smirking, while I shifted rather uncomfortably. I don't really mind being looked at, but I wished he would just SAY SOMETHING. I've always hated awkward silences.

"So, ninja princess, we meet at last," the officer finally spoke.

_Took you long enou – what?_

I think "My mind is fileld with wat" pretty much described my state of being at that point, because… my brain was pretty much repeating "wat" over and over and over, because seriously, say WHAT?


	2. Off to see the Evil Overlord

I was always the kind of person who doesn't operate well in panic, so naturally my first response was "Who the hell are you?"

In response, I hear someone off to the side yell "How dare you speak that way? Don't you know who you're speaking to?"

_Of course not! _I screamed back mentally. _If I'd know who he is I wouldn't ask!_

That made me eve more nervous. This must be a very powerful commander, if I was supposed to know who I was speaking to. Heck, maybe he's the overlord of the area. I mentally scrolled down the list of ninja or samurai-related stories that I know, trying to remember if I have seen this commander before, but no luck.

I should've asked a more leading question. Something that would identify _where_ this is. I should have asked "What ninja princess are you talking about?" or something to that effect. I only know so many stories that involve ninja princesses, but that is still too broad a scope. Or better yet, deny being a ninja at all. Maybe they would at least let up the swords.

Besides, there was still no telling how the universe works. Are we all speaking in English? Or was whatever I said being filtered through some magic filter so that we understand each other? Will they hear the things I say exactly the way I say it or will it be filtered into something _equivalent_ but not quite what I said? There were stuff in English with no Japanese equivalent and vice-versa, so…

My mental-flailing was interrupted by the commander's laughing.

"Of course you wouldn't know – you grew up in a backwater village, weren't you?" he said between chuckles.

Well, that's a clue. Although it meant nothing to me at the moment. Weren't _all_ ninja villages located in the middle of nowhere, and would, you know, count as "backwater"? I've never seen a "high-end" ninja village except in Naruto, and that doesn't count. This place is way less zany and more historical than Naruto, so it's obviously not it.

And Naruto has no ninja princesses.

The commander suddenly leaned in closer to my face and I yelped in surprise.

_WHAT ARE YOU DOING GET YOUR FACE OUT OF MY PERSONAL SPACE GO AWAY GO AWAY GO AWAY_

He was actually lifting my chin to face him like something out of a very terrible cliché shoujo manga. The only thing keeping me from screaming and flapping my arms around at that moment was that I was too afraid of all the samurai and swords.

The commander stared right into my eyes and said, "I am Oda Nobukatsu, second son of Oda Nobunaga. Remember that well."

"What the absolute fuck?"

… Damn. I said that out loud.

_I'm so dead now._

_No, who cares about dying. DID HE JUST SAY WHAT I THOUGHT HE SAID?_

_OMG, he did. Well. Huh. Pretty face. I'm not surprised, I mean – _

_Wait a second, this is THAT game, isn't it? _

_It SO is._

_Whyyyyyy?_

_I'm so dead now! _

_No, I'm already dead before, so I'm even MORE dead now!_

_AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!_

If I could facepalm I would have done so.

Of all the weird universes I could have landed in, it just had to be Ninja Love. I would take anything else, because a lot of historical manga just takes real history as-is, and just playing with the behind the scenes. Like "This is what you didn't know actually happened" and all that. I could deal with that. Follow history, avoid the right places, so on and so forth.

Ninja Love just changes around history in however way the plot demands and I have no way of knowing which plot is this particular one following! Each route is pretty much a different universe and everything works differently in each one, so unless I know what plot is happening in this "story" I've landed in, I'm screwed! I may be a geek for Japanese history and know enough to get by, but with Ninja Love, that helps me NOTHING.

Why can't I just have landed in a NORMAL situation? Like, you know, landing among the ninjas? At least I would've managed to get myself more oriented. Or just in the middle of some village nowhere. The game was accurate to history enough to say that there were foreigners, so maybe there would be the Catholics among them and I could…

_Ah, that's it!_

"Hey, hey, you got the wrong person here!" I quickly said, "I don't know any ninjas princesses. I'm a foreigner!"

I realized the flaw of what I just said when I saw that Nobukatsu was looking at me with a "You think I'm that stupid?" expression.

My sister and I have been mistaken as Japanese _by Japanese people_ in real life – mostly people would think we're Vietnamese, but there were occasionally people who thought we're Japanese or Korean – so this shouldn't surprise me, but I had thought my hoodie would be good enough as a proof of my foreign-ness. Maybe this getup just looked like ninja outfit to him?

I sighed, not sure if I was the stupid one or _him. _

"Hey, look, I really have no idea what ninja princess you're talking about. See my clothes? I'm from somewhere else and I'm lost…"

I quickly shut my mouth as a thought hit me.

What if they _were_ seeing me as the ninja princess? What if, even though I'm seeing myself as myself, those other people were seeing me through some kind of magic filter too and to them I look like the ninjas princess?

(I still have no idea how in the game universe the enemy guys knows what the ninja princess looks like, but still! I just have to roll with it for now.)

Nobukatsu started looking me up and down, and it made me nervous.

I hope it wasn't with a "perverted gaze", as those shoujo manga and otome games like to say, because I honestly can't tell what that kind of gaze was supposed to look like. I mean, this has to be a dream, because his pretty face _had_ to be a throwback to that Wikipedia article I read a few days ago, but I have no control over my dream, and I don't want anything bad to happen in my dream too!

No, really, that Wikipedia article said "The Oda family is renowned for their beautiful men and women". When I play Ninja Love, I always imagine Nobukatsu as a beardless Nobunaga of some sorts. Maybe with a slightly different hairstyle, but I wouldn't actively imagine him to have a pretty face like this. He kind of reminds me of one of the guys in the drama I recently saw… Tamayama Tetsuji, I think his name was?

This is a really weird dream. I want to leave it.

"Hm, true, I have never seen clothes like yours before," Nobukatsu finally said.

Oh goodie, it looks like my hoodie is actually a hoodie to them. So I guess I do look like myself. That's a bit comforting.

"So… you see? I'm a foreigner. Can I leave now?" I asked hopefully.

_And tell your samurai to lower their swords already? _

Nobukatsu crossed his arms. "No, just because you have strange clothes doesn't prove anything."

I mentally groaned.

_Oh, for crying out loud, really? The ninjas weren't buddy-buddy with the "barbarian" guys, you know? I wouldn't have been wearing this outfit if I were really the princess!_

I wished I could say that, but that would imply I actually know something about the ninjas and it would make the situation worse, so I just clamped my mouth shut and fumed. I didn't know what else to say, because I have no clue what the Europeans in this universe looks like. My hoodie could pass for a weird version of the robes the Jesuit missionaries wore, but Kotaro once mentioned that his white hair caused people to call him "barbarian", which is the thing they call the European folk, so does that mean that the Europeans here are the blond Dutch folks?

But Ninja Assassin said that blond Europeans were not common…

But Ninja Assassin may not be in the same universe as Ninja Love…

_Argh, this is hurting my brain!_

"Father knows more about the barbarians than I do, so I'll let him decide if you were telling the truth or not," Nobukatsu said. "Men, we're going back. Tie her up."

Oh shit.

I didn't struggle much as they tied me up (and thankfully not taking my bag away, because I _would_ fight if they did) because my mind was reeling.

They're taking me to Nobunaga.

_They're taking me to Nobunaga._

WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY

**_I'M SO DONE FOR!_**

Why did I dream this?

If I didn't dream this, whatever is going on must be caused by someone who hates me.

This sucks.

* * *

_Where were we?_

_How long would it take to arrive?_

_Will I have to camp out?_

As the samurai prodded me along, I tried to map out the possible distance of the trek. I'm not afraid of walking a long distance; I'm used to it. What I'm afraid of is having to camp out, because I'm scared of what might the samurai do to me at night.

In the games the princess tend to be unharmed during capture until they arrive at whatever place they needed to be, and then they start tormenting her and everything, but… I'm just a suspicious person who _might_ be the princess. What if because of that they don't care so much about treating me well?

In the game, despite the names of places are REAL PLACES, they are probably not in the same locations.

Like, in I could forgive the random detour to Ise in Goemon's route because he might have purposely done that to steal the arquebuses. Otherwise that would have made no sense because from Kawachinokuni, Ise is further away than Iga. They'd have to turn back, not continue on ahead after that kerfuffle with Nobukatsu's castle construction – which was _a real historical event_, by the way, which was why I initially assumed that the places are placed correctly on the map.

But then you had that beach thing in Nobunaga's route…

In 1581, he'd be residing in Azuchi, which is land-locked and would take at least 2 days on horseback to reach a beach. That makes no sense. A lake beach I would get, but that was a real beach by the sea. Unless that had been in Owari, because the game seems to like to put him there despite the fact that he doesn't live there anymore.

_This really helps me nothing whatsoever._

I kind of hoped I would just pass out at that moment because it would save me the time and anxiety, but I've never been a faint-hearted person…

I decided to listen in on the samurai talking. Maybe they would say something that would hint about how far away we are from the castle.

It was easy to pick up conversations because these samurai don't talk much. Soon, I caught on something that sounded helpful.

"Heh, good thing we found her so fast. I don't want to go running around forests again for a good long while."

Fast, eh? That's somewhat telling, although a bit vague. My modern idea of what "fast" is might be different from what they had in mind. I mean, I don't drive, so I had to walk wherever the bus can't reach before I bought my bike, but "fast travel" in my head is still like 5-10 minutes. The samurai would probably be thinking of a couple of hours at best.

"What if she really was the wrong person, though? The lord would send us out again," another samurai replied.

"Well, we could always hope Lord Nobunaga would already be asleep by the time we get there. At least then we'd have to wait until tomorrow morning."

Huh. So by their estimation we'd be arriving by night time. I'm not sure if I would prefer that Nobunaga would be asleep by the time we get there or not. I don't like the idea of having to sleep in a dungeon cell, but I don't want to be thrown out in the middle of the night – if the interrogation finishes that fast anyway.

Hopefully something would work out so that they could allow me to have a room. I don't mind staying put in a room for hours, so I don't care about being heavily-guarded.

* * *

It was around sunset when I saw the castle in the distance.

It was THE castle. Azuchi. The one supposedly unparalleled in all of Japanese history. The one that got even the European missionaries awestruck and sing praises to it.

There's no mistaking the shining gold roof and the pagoda-like tower sticking out rather awkwardly from the main castle structure. I had to hold back my squee of joy. My biggest wish was to see the reconstruction of the Azuchi's tower in Japan. As an art student, I want to see just exactly what the Europeans claim to be more amazing than anything they saw in Europe. In my art classes, I've seen Portuguese and Dutch architecture from around that time period, and those were some crazy good stuff. So if this thing is better, it HAD to be priceless. I wished I had a camera because this being a dream be damned, I want to take pictures of the thing!

But because my own mind just had to kill my buzz, I remembered that this is Ninja Love-land. With all those recycled backgrounds causing almost every single place looking identical.

Then again, in the game Azuchi was just that one stock castle and it looked like the real thing here, so… who knows? Maybe the inside would be as amazing as the real deal.

As we marched through the town, I grew more and more excited. I would have skipped and hopped and danced my way up the hill to the castle if I wasn't tied up. The stairs don't scare me. I've climbed the Great Wall of China up to the fourth "checkpoint". I might need a few breaks here and there because I haven't been exercising much through high school and college, but that's not going to bother me one bit!

That is, until I remembered that we were going there to see Nobunaga. That totally dampened my excitement.

If this had been the real historical one? Maybe I would be a super duper _nervous_, kind of like if the Secret Service suddenly picked me up and told me Obama wanted to have lunch with me for a chat or something like that, but I definitely won't be feeling all "Woe is me, can I just not do this?" the way I am now.

Nobunaga may be not all that bad in his own route, but I have no idea what route IS this. At best he'd be a trolltastic weirdo, and at worst a creepy pervert or a murderous psycho. I don't want to meet either of those.

Maybe it would be better off if he's already asleep and I'd have to wait until tomorrow – it's already getting dark and we're only halfway up the hill.

But I'm the kind of person who does worse under anxiety. I think I'd just take the plunge and deal with it right away. Besides, I heard that Nobunaga is the kind of person who likes to keep late hours, especially when holding secret battle meetings, so maybe he's still up.

But what if he's a terrible person and kicked me out to the streets in the middle of the night? I prefer the dungeon cell… I think…

I still couldn't decide which scenario I prefer when we reached the main castle building.

* * *

As it were, the overlord was still willing to interrogate me even at this late hour. Well, actually I have no idea how late it was, but it looked dark and it seemed to be summer because it was so hot during the day – not that I'd know how hot it would be during the day in, say, spring or fall in Ninja Love-land, but it's probably not winter.

I wasn't really paying much attention to the details of how this is going to work and I just let the guards/retainers/pages (I don't even care who was doing it at this point) drag me around, because I was staring at the wall paintings. Daaamn, those paintings were amazing. These weren't just pictures of flowers and trees and stuff. There's people. And scenes that looked like the pictures in my dad's Chinese philosophy books. Like, Chinese sages and disciples and stuff like that. And Buddha. And gods and goddesses. And there were also some plants and trees, but there's more people than plants. And… and… other things!

It's like walking into an art gallery and my artist soul is singing with joy. I don't know how my brain managed to conjure up all these stuff, but maybe it's all the art gallery and art museum trips I took for class…

The happy moment came into a screeching halt, again, when the retainer directed me into a room.

_Ah, right, this must be where the overlord wants to talk to me._

I immediately recognized the room layout from all the historical drama I've been watching. It still has all those paintings on the wall, but they were simpler, and there was a raised platform at one end.

I sat down at the place the retainer (I think, because he seems too old to be a page) indicated to me, and steeled myself for all sorts of bad shit that might happen.

And to not laugh at Nobunaga's face. I really have no idea what he'd look like this is bizarro universe. I mean, I know what he looks like in 2D, but I'm sure there's a bajillion different ways of how that face could translate into as a "real life person". There's been quite a few really ridiculous portrayals of Nobunaga that I've seen, especially in old black-and-white ninja movies where he's the super evil psycho villain… which *ahem* is kind of the case here.

Unless I've somehow stumbled into the non-existent Nobukatsu route or something. I don't know.

I wriggled and tapped and fiddled my fingers and itching to bite my nails all while waiting. Bad habit, I know, but I just wanted _anything_ to divert my mind from anxiety. I hate it because it feels like my mind is running around at top speed aimlessly.

Then, at long last, a page announced Nobunaga's arrival. Everyone in the room bowed, and I followed them suit. I don't want to be yelled at for having bad manners. Besides, it's all the more excuse to avoid having to see his face until the last moment.

"You all can stop bowing now."

Two things struck me immediately upon hearing Nobunaga speak.

1) Boy, informal as ever. I kind of appreciated that aspect of his character from the games, considering it was supposedly _true_.Well, at least if I understood Luis Frois's description correctly anywsay.

2) His voice. HIS VOICE. I knew that voice too darn well. It can't be… It can't be… This dream can't be worse than it already is…

I was almost too afraid to look, but my curiousity won and I very slowly and nervously looked up.

"Oh, no shit," I squeaked out before I could stop myself. Thankfully it was too soft for anyone to hear, so I squeezed my mouth shut and looked down at the floor again.

Naturally, it _is_. The very thing I wish wasn't true.

Nobunaga has the face and voice of the guy I've been awkwardly crushing on for months. The quirky Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Vietnamese (he wouldn't tell me ever) computer lab techie guy in college. Who always insisted on being called "Senpai" for whatever reason. Who really loves otome games and shoujo manga. That one. But 15 years older. With a beard. And longer hair. And that ridiculous stripper kimono. But it's still him.

I kind of want to die now.

My logic mode kicked in and I started mentally formulating a reason why this is happening.

Senpai – well, his real name is Calvin, but he always wanted to be called Senpai – was a terrible history geek who was probably a little more than obsessed with Oda Nobunaga, as well as the one who manipulated me into playing Ninja Love.

I was sure he goaded me into playing it only to have an excuse to ramble forever about things, because he would hover over me playing Ninja Love and just talk on and on and on and on about the historical background of every single little thing ever that popped up on the screen. Even the throwaway mentions that hardly mattered whatsoever to the game. Look, I don't _really_ mind because I do like history and hearing about these are cool, though my focus previously was on Chinese history because ancestry pride, but I don't particularly care that the "Kurohabaki" ninja was supposedly the ninjas who serve Date Masamune in real life because _they are just space filler mooks who matter jack squat to the plot_.

But it was more than obvious that what he wanted to talk about was Nobunaga, because somehow all the rambling would always end up with Nobunaga.

I did end up becoming a bit interested in the guy, and did a bit of looking around. Mostly just the castles, because architecture is fun, but still. I did some extra looking just to make sure Senpai wasn't bullshitting me because half of the stuff he told me seems way out of the left field.

And that must be why this happened because my mind sort of went "Senpai = Nobunaga". The two words kind of has become synonymous to me. But I'm still resenting this because Ninja Love-Nobunaga's stripper kimono is making things forever awkward. Why can't Ninja Love's designer have given him more sensible clothes? Why couldn't Nobunaga have materialized with a _different face_?

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

_Ninjas please come rescue me now! And make it quick! Before I run out of sanity!_

* * *

_Note:_

_I'm sorry, this chapter went really weird. I was trying my darnedest to at least give you her name, and she is such a long-winded person, so I still haven't managed to quite get there yet. The ninjas WILL show up later. I just wanted to make my character freak out more because she can't follow the Ninja Love plot and make her scream and flail._

_And also sneaking in historical references. _

_1) The blah about Azuchi castle were pretty much real, based on museum photos and this Nobunaga biography book._

_2) Oh, that Wikipedia article about pretty people? It's also real. I just happened to see it at some point. I forgot whose page it was, though. _

_3) Yes, some of the ninja clans mentioned in-game were real (Iga, Koga, Fuma, Togakure). The others are kind of legendary and cannot be verified if real or not (Kurohabaki, Hachiyasu), and some others may not have been ninjas (the Hachisuka and Negoro/Negoroshu were more or less guerilla type soldiers, but they are kind of ninja-like, I guess)._


End file.
